Crawling
by RiverDoe
Summary: Alternate Season 6, Buffy comes back a little… different. The others don’t know and the only one who understands, is Spike. BuffySpike.


Summary: Alternate Season 6, Buffy comes back a little… different. The others don't know and the only one who understands, is Spike.

Disclaimer: Characters aint mine, they belong to Joss, although I might introduce a few originals.

AN- Haven't written any fanfic in ages, so I went back to this one and have redone it quite a bit. Amazing how if you leave something for so long and do something else, that when you come back you're amazed at how much your style of writing has changed. Warnings for angst and this is Buffy/Spike, or at least, that's how it will end up. This is only the prologue, there will be more, just as soon as I've finished one of my original fics, I will come back to this, and my other er… neglected fanfics.

**Crawling**

**Prologue**

The first thing she felt was pain. The second was the cold. Her muscles ached like she hadn't used them in some time. She opened her eyes and found she was staring at something that looked suspiciously like velvet. She couldn't remember anything, just a kind of… peace. She looked round and her heart skipped a beat.

She was in a coffin.

Slowly, she reached up and touched the lining in front of her. Behind it she could feel the wooden lid. She pushed against it, but it didn't budge. Terror gripped her and she brought her hand back, curled it into a fist and slammed it against the wood. Her hand broke through and stones and dirt fell through the hole she'd made onto her face. She spat some out of her mouth to one side. She grabbed the stones and crushed them in her grip.

That was when she noticed it. Although it had to be pitch black in the coffin. She could see. It was like everything had been given a yellow wash. She could see the bugs and insects crawling around in the dirt, she sat up in the little room that she could and looked down at the bottom of the coffin. She could see her feet and the end.

She lay back down, and punched the coffin again. More dirt fell onto her, she shook it away and battled her way to the surface. As soon as her hand broke the ground, she grabbed onto the nearest thing she could and pulled herself up. Her muscles strained under her, and finally she kicked against the earth and boosted herself out.

She heaved in large gulps of air and her arms gave out beneath her. She fell to the ground, and rolled herself over. She lay there, breathing in deeply, and saw something move out the corner of her eye. She looked up, and saw a deer watching her warily. She moved, and it skittered off and disappeared into the trees behind it. She forced her arms to move and managed to sit up again. There were trees in front of her, large trees that overshadowed the hole she'd just climbed out of. She looked down at the foot of the tree and saw the stone. She didn't need to read it to know what it said.

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS  
1981-2001  
BELOVED SISTER AND DEVOTED FRIEND  
SHE SAVED THE WORLD A LOT

She'd been dead, that was the simplicity of it. As she looked at it, her vision started to cloud over and she could feel tears leaking from her eyes and down her face. She wiped them away quickly and looked around again. Her vision seemed dimmer than before.

She squinted at the headstone, now barely able to make out the words, and it all came back to her. It was like someone was showing her a slideshow in fast motion. Merrick, LA, Angel, Spike, Faith, the Mayor… people and places appeared in her mind as her memory returned, but there was one that stood out. And it was her leaping off a tower and falling. Then the pain as magick coursed its way through her and then the ground was rushing up to meet her. She felt a brief flicker of peace and then the cold returned.

She'd died. And come back.

Tears cascaded down her face, mingling with the mud there and she tried to wipe them away, but she could still feel the streaks. She stood, shakily, and fell. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry, but something was wrong. She knew… she could feel it. Her senses were warning her about something. She managed to get to another tree, and sat down against it. There was something wrong…

She could feel it.

She closed her eyes, willing it to be just a very bad dream, it had to be. This couldn't be… real. A part of her was saying this was all impossible. But another part of her knew it wasn't.

She could feel the cold creeping into her skin, and then she felt as if something was crawling all over her. She looked down at her hands, and saw that her nails had extended into two inch long claws. She turned her hands over, and noticed that her vision had sharpened once again.

Her body started convulsing, she felt her head connect with the tree as it was whipped back. And then she felt only pain as her body started to change.

Tbc…


End file.
